Canucks and Beyond

Entries with the tag: media

The provincial elections in Ontario are set to happen on October 6th. The problem is, the Toronto Maple Leafs season opener with the Montreal Canadians (plus a Vancouver Canucks/Pittsburgh Penguins matchup) are going off on the same night.

CBC has historically cancelled most regular programming on election nights, to keep viewers informed as the results come in. But knocking out the season-opening game for the Leafs? In TV-ratings land, that’s seriously bad politics.

Transcripts of today’s Q&A’s with Manny Malhotra, Henrik Sedin, Alex Edler, Daniel Sedin, Christian Ehrhoff, and coach Alain Vigneault.
_______________________________________Q. Manny, can you end the suspense and tell us if you’re playing tonight?
MANNY MALHOTRA: It’s gone from day to day to game-time decision right now. I’m honestly not trying to send you guys on a wild goose chase. That’s just the nature of the situation right now.

Q. At this point in the day, do you feel healthy enough to play?
MANNY MALHOTRA: I feel really good, yeah. I felt good yesterday skating. Felt good this morning. So, again, hopefully I’ll continue throughout the day.

Q. Manny, what were you looking for from your game to give you an indication that you’re ready?

MANNY MALHOTRA: It’s tough to say. Obviously being good in the circle is going to be a big part of what I do. It’s always tough to say how your legs are going to be responding in a game. I felt good the last few days of skating as far as my wind goes.

I think early on, things we’re going to talk about if I go, is just simplicity, getting my feet moving, getting pucks in, making smart decisions with the pucks, keeping things real basic for right now.

Sportsnet.ca profiles the past of Winnipeg Jets and the future of NHL hockey in the city. Video:

Hockey in Winnipeg is near and dear to the residents of that city, many of whom passionately believe they can support a new NHL team. Whether it happens or not, however, is a total mystery, given the astonishing amount of misinformation and seemingly worthless “sources” informing the likes of TSN and some of the Winnipeg media. And it’s been going on for years now.

All of this makes me think of fans in Atlanta, though. [insert joke here]. But seriously, they do exist, and the Canadian media’s focus having shifted from Arizona to Georgia has them wondering what’s happening next in their own market.

Numerous Canucks fans have written with their complaints that CBC won’t be broadcasting Canucks/Blues games #3 and #4 in high definition. I’ve also seen the same concerns expressed on Twitter this morning, where Brian Wawryshyn of Canucks Corner finally explained to us that:

“Jim Hughson was on the @TEAM1040 and stated it’s logisitics with the truck. They could rent one but they won’t. Budget cutbacks!”

Sadly this makes some sense, given the cutbacks at CBC are massive this year and the cost of those satellite HD trucks are exorbitant.

But while Canucks fans continue to mobilize an effort to press the CBC into finding some way to get an HD feed for those road games, it’s fair to say Calgary Flames fans are even more annoyed at some CBC-related issues today.

Tonight, CBC‘s Hockey Night in Canada playoff preview special featured a segment with three gentlemen many of you are very familiar with: Tom Benjamin of Canucks Corner; Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy; and our own Paul Kukla. I’ve taken the liberty of popping the video onto YouTube so more people might have a chance to see it.

Great job by all… although there is a disturbing lack of trash-talk for a bunch of bloggers during playoff time.

*The complete show is worth watching, but I couldn’t find the video on the CBC website. Perhaps it’ll be available later.

Sports reporting is news reporting, and if you doubt that, I would argue that you’re not paying enough attention. But while much is made of the roles of new media and their (or ‘our’) impact on the standards in journalistic coverage, very little is ever mentioned about the accepted standards within the mainstream media itself.

And there are some potential conflicts of interest that should be demanding more attention.

That’s why

Lisa Smedman’s

* Fiona Hughes’s article in the Vancouver Courier today is worth a mention. She was spurred to write about potential conflicts of interest in Canucks broadcasting coverage after witnessing the last Canucks/Habs matchup back on February 15th. She outlines the problem as she saw it, here:

This was published in the Globe & Mail yesterday but I only spotted it today. And even a bit late, good news is still good news…

At the midway point of the season, NHL television audiences in Canada and the United States are showing major increases.

TSN’s average viewership is up 17 per cent from last year to 481,000 a game. The increase for Montreal Canadiens’ telecasts on French-language RDS is 22 per cent, to 783,000. Versus in the United States is averaging 308,695, a rise of 18 per cent. And the CBC, despite losing three Toronto Maple Leafs telecasts in its new NHL deal, is drawing prime-time audiences that are up 4 per cent from last year, to 1.206 million a game.

Those are some huge increases. Any theories as to why?

P.S. I should say, my own off-the-top-of-my-head theory is that it relates to the success of the Winter Classic last year. That seemed to be a turning point for a lot more positive NHL coverage from non-hockey-focused sports media, instead of the knee-jerk “hockey sucks” analysis many of those outlets seemed to depend on before that. It also appeared to bring in a lot of viewers who didn’t typically watch hockey.

An everyday debate about “What is wrong in Ottawa?” would just be a yawner most of of the time. That is, until Sportsnet‘s Bill Watters and Nick Kypreos decide to take a ride on the crazy train and make it personal.

Not sure what day this was originally broadcast but once the screaming starts, who really cares? Hate is such a timeless emotion.

Note: This video may only work for Canadian IPs - sorry. And my thanks to Toronto Sports Media for the pointer.

The only thing missing from Mats Sundin’s arrival in Vancouver this week was a shot of Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham striking a pose for the cameras, and a few well-chosen celebrity guests on Entertainment Tonight sharing their excitement at the hero’s new gig on the west coast.

The local media is on an endless loop for the past 12-24 hours, working itself into a tizzy at the arrival of a new star in town. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t played a game or even honored them with a sound bite. It’s still the Christmas season and The Second Coming has arrived—he just happens to be a bald, 37 year old Swedish guy.

The announcement of the Mats Sundin deal yesterday seemed to impress the Vancouver media more than the fans. Not that the fans aren’t happy—most seem to be pretty psyched about it, including me despite some reservations about the terms—but I think many are suspicious. Or perhaps just cautious in their optimism.

But still, there’s always New York for a little “reality check”—or perhaps it’s just embittered, revisionist history?—such as that from Larry Brooks in the New York Post today:

IN the end, Mats Sundin made like Woodward and Bernstein following Deep Throat’s advice. He followed the money.

The 37-year-old free agent center followed the money to Vancouver, accepting a pro-rated $10 million deal from the Canucks instead of less than that to live in New York and play for the Rangers New York Rangers .

Sundin followed his wallet instead of his heart. Good for him. Just one more mercenary the way pretty much professional athletes essentially are.

Tonight, Canucks.com is airing a special featuring panelists Barry MacDonald, Dean Linden, Kirk McLean and Norm Jewison. The crew will share their own thoughts on Linden as well as answer fans’ questions sent in by video. (*Which includes me, theoretically, although I’m not totally sure; I botched up things up initially and they requested another video today, which may have arrived too late for them to use. C’est la vie!)

Anyway, the show will be available during the 8pm PT live broadcast on the player embedded below.

“It’s been a battle, but when people ask, ‘Why would you want to be the backup in Vancouver?’ the thing I say is I’ve worked extremely hard to get to where I am and I’m extremely proud of what I’ve accomplished.”

Randy Sportak of Sun Media takes note of Sanford’s interesting career path, moving from the obscurity of the UHL after his junior career was over, to a rebuilding St. Louis Blues a year later, to the Vancouver hot-seat he’s on today. A quick and interesting overview on Sanford, and a worth a read.

In other news, Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun is here to tell you why he’s not that impressed with that 8-0-2 record Vancouver was sporting until last night. (*And it’s not that he doesn’t make some worthwhile observations, but I love how it’s only losses which produce assessments like McIntyre’s, yet strangely they never mention such things before a loss shows up in the stats.)

What’s worse, I have a feeling the Canucks lose to the Flamers on Saturday, too, so I expect such Monday Morning Quarterbacking to be in full effect across then entire Vancouver media landscape come Sunday. Fun.

A new episode of The Crazy Canucks is up and episode #69 obviously features a lot of groin talk.

Although touted as the super groin spectacular due to Luongo’s injury being the top story in Vancouver news [recently] this episode is pretty much about a team united (and happy to boot). All of the co-hosts join together to talk lines, recent wins, upcoming road trips, and to try and figure out the meaning behind the end of game hoots and hollers for Sanford.

Second: I’ll be a guest on The Program tonight, largely because—I suspect—those boys want to make me cry about Roberto Luongo’s injury status in a public forum. (Grrrrr…!) So listen in at 7pm PT and if you want to test my hockey knowledge you can also phone in during the program at (347) 826-7358.*

Disclaimer: Testing my hockey knowledge is a double-edged sword, as I reserve the right to make up crap on the spot if it suits me. You’ve been warned.

Essentially it turns the navigation area into a control panel for the Canucks website (i.e. quick access to stats, schedules, the message boards, etc) plus it also cycles the headlines of the latest feature stories from the team onto your browser. There’s also a “light” option once you get it installed, which still has the useful features but reduces the Canucks branding if you prefer.

They’ve made you laugh and made you cry, given you hope and left you despondent, enraged and uplifted you. You love them. You hate them, but never for long. You could probably live without them but can’t imagine the deprivation.

The Vancouver Canucks are the longest-running melodrama in our city, as indispensible as they are exasperating. Next Monday, after 38 years, the Canucks take their story - your story - to the big screen at theatres around B.C.

The National Hockey League team is releasing a feature-length documentary entitled Forever Faithful - The Canucks Movie.

I once found it odd how many UK hockey fans there are out there, but not anymore. Over the years I’ve heard a lot from British NHL fans and am no longer surprised at their knowledge of and passion for the game.

The only thing I still find surprising is that such passion exists despite the obstacles they face in trying to enjoy their favorite sport—which is why this might be an interesting option for some.

This morning, SENShobo dropped me a pointer to a press release about ESPN360 in the UK and it’s new online video player:

Given all the online column inches of the last few days dedicated to hockey bloggeraccountability I thought I’d clarify my own, as it was called into question today.

Last Saturday I (along with a few others out there as I discovered later) published the Mike Commodore photo that’s since shown up everywhere, with the statement that it was posted on Mike’s own Facebook page.

Anyway, fast-forward to today when Tom Reed reported on the topic at his Columbus Dispatch blog Puck-Rakers—and I’ve since received a fair bit of blowback from his post.

The Crazy Canucks had a small gap in our podcasts this month (John is our mighty producer, and he’s been recovering from some dark & mysterious illness) but a new episode is now up. Check it out.
In addition to hockey talk, we were also pondering TCC sitings around Vancouver and the photo here made my day. That’s J.J. and DaveO from our crew, plus Richard Loat (of Facebook) in the middle.

I’ve yet to see the bus(es) featuring my own sorry self (though I’ve seen other stuff) but I did get this text message from Miss604 earlier today:

“I just passed you on a bus!”

I’m not sure, but I think she sounded a bit scared. (And god knows, I am…)

The American television show How I Met Your Mother seems to have a strange fascination with Vancouver Canucks hockey. It began about a year ago with this reference to Mason Raymond:

The character Robin, who is Canadian, told a story about going on a date to a Rangers game. “I got to meet Mason Raymond,” she said, to which her friends gave her blank stares. “The Canucks left wing.” Still no response. Finally, Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris) said, “Is that the opposite of name dropping?”

But it doesn’t end there. It seems the show has moved on to other Canucks, specifically the team’s captain Roberto Luongo. Here’s a video clip:

I saw that The Puck Stops Here mentioned this earlier, but I thought I’d also pop up the CBC video which announced the winner of CBC’s Hockey Theme contest. The winning tune is titled Canadian Gold. (And I like it. It’ll definitely grow on me.)

Incidentally, while the winner took home $100,000 and major bragging rights for all time, the ‘loser’—the second finalist—wasn’t so lucky. His compensation amounted to a piece of Patrick Roy paraphernalia, a custom-made guitar. Admittedly, it sounds like a cool bit of paraphernalia, but still, it’s Patrick Roy -related.

She’ll never admit it, but she’s the queen of Canucks media coverage. I have no idea how long she has been doing this, but her quality of work and her embracement of the deep rooted suffering that is at the core of all Vancouver fans is some of the best stuff out there. Paul Kukla folded her mind into Kukla’s Korner at the beginning of 2007, giving her an even broader exposure at Canucks & Beyond. Since then she has covered all things in the Vancouver hockey world & has gotten to speak directly with Pierre McGuire, Keith Jones, John Buccigross (and didn’t slug him either!), Bill Daly, Kelly Hrudey, Jim Hughson and contributes regularly on the Crazy Canucks podcast.

I’m not sure she sleeps.

She sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t she? Or she would… if ‘she’ wasn’t just me.

My thanks to Mike for the flattering introduction and the interview which followed—check it out. Just some Canucks talk for a dreary, pre-season Friday.

Contest closes on October 11th… before the first game of Jim Hughson’s opening CBC Canucks HNIC season.

Please leave your name and email on this post. By random draw you may win one of the three prizes I mention on the video, and I’ll ship them wherever you want. (Even if you’re not a Canucks fan—as if that’s even possible…!)

Alex Burrows is open to talking about a contract extension but it’s liable to cost the team a few extra bucks this time. From Elliott Pap in the Vancouver Sun:

Burrows is scheduled to make a bargain basement $525,00 - and cap hit of only $483,000 - this season. It’s the third and final year of a deal he signed when he was a fringe player.

He moved beyond that status in 2007-08 with 31 points and a team-leading plus-11. His point total placed him sixth among Canuck forwards. His 19 assists were fifth best. His 179 penalty minutes easily topped all Vancouver skaters.

He’s big league now after battling his way up from minor league Greenville, Baton Rouge and Columbia in the U.S. south.

Burrows’s story is one of my favorites, his journey into the league seeming so unlikely only a few short years ago. But I also have another attachment to Burrows—he was the first NHL player I ever had the pleasure of interviewing in person.

This year’s regular season TV schedule includes 45 broadcasts on Rogers Sportsnet Pacific, 25 games on national TV (CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada or TSN) and 12 games on Canucks TV Pay Per View. Canucks play-by-play broadcaster John Shorthouse will make his Sportsnet debut on Oct. 17 at Buffalo alongside analyst John Garrett and host Dan Murphy. A schedule of games available in High Definition will be announced at a later date.

Every game will be broadcast this season which is good news—but I still gotta pay for it. My note on last year’s expenses still stands:

[Brian Burke] started off as GM of the Hartford Whalers, a team that had just made the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons. Once Burke got there, they missed.

But he was much better in Vancouver. There, he won a playoff round. Granted it took six seasons to do so, but geniuses can’t be held to the same standards as everyone else. In those six seasons, he missed the playoffs twice and went out in the first round three times.

Of course, Strachan fails to mention the levels to which Vancouver sucked before Burke came to town, but what the hell—Al is on a roll in this column.

I’ve ignored almost everything “Mats Sundin” that’s come along in recent weeks, which is probably foolish from a popularity point of view. Judging from the glut of stories being published daily on the subject, the mainstream media and a few shrewd hockey blogs have found a sure-fire way to generate summer hockey traffic.

That is: think about Mats Sundin; write about Mats Sundin; post about Mats Sundin; think about writing and then posting about Mats Sundin… etc.

Mostly I just find it boring, but I suppose the matter needs to be dragged up and aired out once in a while. Especially when Howard Berger says something dumb enough I’m forced to actually defend the Toronto Maple Leafs…

Ron Delorme, part of the Canucks organization for some 26 years, has tattoos of all the Canucks logos on his butt. (Seriously.) Anyway, Iain MacIntyre at the Vancouver Sun talks with the Canucks scouting director of the last nine years. All indications are that he’s on his way out.

Update 10:40am PT: Given the Delorme story, below is a bit of support for his drafting record, and from an unlikely source: a Detroit Red Wings fan.

The coverage of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft has featured a small nightmare for those media members covering it for newspapers and the internet. And that would be most of them.

With the exception of the Movie People*—who are no doubt thrilled to have zero problems getting uninterrupted shots of Sara Orlesky on the air—everything else broadcasting out of Ottawa’s Scotiabank Place has run into the brick wall of the building’s badass, non-existent wifi signal.

Hockey coverage in 1998 must have sucked, because this has been a massive pain in the a$$.

I usually like hockey trade rumors; even if they’re wrong, they’re fun fantasies of what could be without being burdened too excessively by things like ‘reality’.

As a Canucks fan, I particularly appreciate temporary escapes from reality. When rumors run amok about the likes of Olli Jokinen and Ryan Malone coming to Vancouver, I’m entertained. I separate myself from that troublesome inner-knowledge that “Canucks fans are never that lucky.” And it’s pleasant for as long as it lasts.*

But escapes from reality are one thing—manipulating hockey fans to drive website traffic and sell newspapers is another thing all together.

Or maybe it’s not even that sinister. Perhaps some reporters are just stupid.

From the Associated Press, a new profit scheme for anyone who wishes to cite excerpts from their articles:

You’ve got to be kidding. Can’t Stop the Bleeding notes, “Time will tell if other wire services follow suit, but despite the challenges this will present to CSTB, I’m confident the sports blogosphere’s leading lights will soldier on.”

Indeed they will. And they will be happy to do so without citing or linking to AP materials posted at any website on the internet—and sites who pay for AP feeds on their website will lose part of the traffic that drives their advertising dollars.

For a story of such uniquely-Canadian relevance, the controversy over The Hockey Theme leaving the CBC had a notable international tone.

Madeleine Morris lives and works in Vietnam and also happens to be the daughter of Dolores Claman, the much-discussed (and frequently reviled) composer of the The Hockey Theme who currently resides in the UK.

It was Ms. Morris who was left to undertake the task of defending her mother’s position, and with all the wailing despair over the loss of Canada’s de facto national anthem, I don’t think many people were listening.

In my own case, it was only after a former CBC employee contacted me with more information that I got curious enough to seek out Ms. Morris and ask for her side of the story.

A story in The Province the other day speculated out loud on the poorly-kept secret that Joey Kenward—currently the voice of the Vancouver Giants as well as their Director of Broadcaster and Media Relations—is tops on the list to be the partial-replacement for John Shorthouse at TEAM 1040 next year. Shorthouse, of course, was recently awarded Jim Hughson’s old chair at Sportsnet Pacific.

Looking for more information on Joey Kenward, I came across a brief biographical piece originally published by the Nanaimo Daily News in 2006. At the time, Kenward remarked:

“I certainly make no bones about wanting to be in the NHL one day and I’d love to be able to broadcast the Olympics, those are two goals I have set for myself. But I realize there are really not a lot of jobs available and the people [that] have those jobs are really good.”

Ambitious guy that may just have nailed a major career goal. Here’s more about him from the same article written by Scott Brown:

There’s been much preoccupation with the fact that the Red Wings, possibly just inches away from winning this year’s Stanley Cup, may do so aided for the first time by a European captain.

The origins of this come from the notion that Europeans are ‘soft’, ‘don’t make good leaders’ and don’t have enough grit for the big prize. But where does that attitude even exist in the modern NHL and why this seemingly-endless obsession with debunking it?

As far as I can tell, the only prominent person who is still in hockey today that ever argued Europeans were soft was Don Cherry. And—aside from the fact that bombast and controversial commentary are historically part of Cherry’s schtick—I don’t even think Cherry believes that anymore.

So why do so many others still need guys like Nik Lidstrom to prove him wrong?

The departure of Jim Hughson from Sportsnet Pacific to the hallowed halls of Hockey Night in Canada at CBC has left a large hole in the broadcast landscape for Vancouver Canucks fans. But that might be changing in a matter of hours.

Rumors out of Sportsnet have it that John Shorthouse has agreed to a deal with the network to call all their televised Canucks games this season, while still maintaining his gig at TEAM 1040 for those games being televised on other networks.

An announcement is possible in the next few hours, but I doubt too many Vancouver fans will be surprised at the news. Shorthouse is a solid choice.

Update 2:57pm PT: Announcement was made public about 10 minutes ago on the TEAM 1040—and they’ll be talking to Shorthouse about his new gig in about 45 minutes on the air.

A casual remark from Cliff Ronning buried at the end of this article in a local Burnaby paper yesterday, caught my attention:

“Sooner or later I’m going to slow down a bit. My ultimate goal would be somehow to work with the Canucks in some capacity. I would stop doing everything to do that because that’s pretty well where my heart is.”

That says a lot, given that this organization didn’t exactly endear itself to Ronning back in 1996, when “the Canucks offered him a 30 per cent pay cut and everyone else a 30 per cent raise.” (Which instantly brings to mind a Mike Keenan joke, but he wasn’t even in Vancouver yet so I’ll have to bank that one. Which is annoying. Mike Keenan jokes are a crowd-pleaser.) But perhaps the money issue is understandable given that the 1996 roster must have commanded some big bucks going into the 1997 season.

An FYI to TSN and their heartfelt commitment to the source who tells them the Leafs have actually spoken to Dave Nonis, a note from Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun:

Nonis denied early Thursday in an interview that anyone from the Leafs had even contacted him.

“I haven’t talked to anyone from Toronto at this time,” Nonis told TEAM 1040 radio in the morning. “Right now, Toronto is not one of the teams I’ve spoken to and we’ll see if they do contact me. I don’t really have any intentions of rushing into something unless it looks like something I have to do. I’d prefer to sit and wait. It’s still very early.”

TSN—who almost certainly listened to that same interview—still managed to come up with this:

A company called Coleman Analytics has five NHL teams (and they’re looking to add Vancouver to their list of clients) that are paying them up to $100K a year for “basic” analytics services. Honestly, I bet plenty of obsessive & mathematically-inclined hockey fans would gladly kick those numbers out for free, or maybe a bit of swag. (I know, I know. I’m over-simplifying… but at least let The Forechecker bid for the job.)

Finally, for all those from other media outlets and newspapers who have sarcastically dismissed our initial web story about Sean Avery’s hospitalization since the Rangers refuted it Wednesday afternoon, I wonder:

Was your initial reaction that the story couldn’t have been correct or did you simply race up to the MSG Training Center to get player reaction? And, did you call the hospital and/or Avery’s representatives to get the real story or did your “reporting” simply consist of taking the team’s word for what happened?

Fortunately, the intrepid men an women of the press who have exposed baseball’s steroid problems didn’t similarly regurgitate what they were told by people who understandably want their businesses viewed as beyond reproach.

The reports on Sean Avery’s medical condition this morning started off at a furious pace with words the NY Daily News (reporters John Dellapina and Larry McShane) had to have known would incite a frenzy:

Rangers bad boy Sean Avery, unconscious and not breathing, was rushed to a Manhattan hospital Wednesday morning in cardiac arrest just hours after his team’s playoff loss, sources said.

By 12:30pm Eastern Time, the NY Rangers issued a statement denying these facts, and confirming rumors that were already circulating: that Avery was in fact suffering from a lacerated spleen. A serious condition, but one that did not involve anything as extreme as Avery not breathing for any period of time.

By early afternoon, David Shoalts at the Globe & Mail was quoting a NYR spokesman who stated that “[Avery] walked into the hospital and was not on a stretcher.” And Steve Simmons at the Toronto Sun spoke with Avery’s agent, Pat Morris, who says the condition was never life-threatening.

Almost certainly, this was an entirely innocent mistake by the Daily News, but a profitable one for their website, and they’ve not handled the situation very well in general.

In the excitement, French-language sports channel RDS has reeled in more Quebec viewers than CBC has nationwide with its Habs broadcasts. And even many English-speaking hockey fans are tuning in to the French coverage.

Some Anglos in Quebec say they’re choosing RDS over the CBC’s English coverage, and many believe the public broadcaster should stick to what it knows best - Toronto.

“The announcers are better, they’re not as biased and they don’t care who’s winning - they tell it as it is,” Pat Wychocki said of RDS…

This reminds me—as a kid out living out west, we almost always watched (or listened to) the Montreal Canadiens and the Quebec Nordiques on a French language broadcast, when it was available.

There was an Iain MacIntyre article in the Vancouver Sun this morning which brought up some serious issues about Dan Cloutier’s experience since his trade to the Los Angeles Kings. In it, MacIntyre addressed issues about Cloutier’s recent career that hadn’t been publicized before.

Specifically:

But harder than stopping the puck was the feeling Cloutier had—has—that the Kings weren’t doing much to help him.

The team insisted he shed his birdcage wire mask and helmet, citing insurance issues. Cloutier was never comfortable in a traditional mask, and a few games into last season he was feeling physical discomfort.

He was having hip pain. He volunteered to keep playing because the Kings’ other goalie, Mathieu Garon, had a broken finger. Cloutier’s pain got worse, but the team insisted initially there was little wrong with him.